I'd rather live in [her] world than live without [her] in mine
I have two major ideas I'd like to address in this livejournal.
First, I was talking with a friend and I think I had a bit of an epiphany. I've always thought very hard about what it is that makes me feel like I can change myself, where so many other people feel so incapable of changing themselves, or feel like they are bad people. I sort of accidentally stumbled upon an idea that I think is pretty close to core on my viewpoint about myself, and about other people too.
When people get really down on themselves, they think they are failures, etc. I think people get too wrapped up in this unforgiving idea our society holds about personal identity. We tend to define ourselves by our worst characteristics, possibly in hopes that it will encourage us to change them, but ultimately I think it makes us feel powerless.
My viewpoint on personal identity is this: We (you, he, she, everyone individually) are exactly who we THINK we are. The difference between how we behave and how the person we think we are would behave can be attributed to bad habits. I don't necessarily mean here that one can change who they are from one second to the next, but their CORE self-image. If you simply believe you are a good person, the only thing between you and the external world are bad learned behaviors, that can be unlearned to let who you really are shine through.
Second, I've been thinking a lot lately about relations. I don't mean relations as in the euphemism for doin' the dirty, nor do I mean relations as a shortened version of relationships (though that's been on my mind a lot lately too). What I mean is identity and relationships between different things. This ties to self identity in some ways - what makes us who we actually are. What makes me me, when all the cells in my body will change out over the course of my lifetime and ultimately I will not be made of anything I once was. Similarly, if there is a car which, over the course of 20 years, EVERY part of it is replaced - is it still the same car? I'm sure you've heard these kind of arguments before. If you haven't, you need to take a philosophy course. You can't dodge this shit if you WANT to. It'll come up in an intro class. Great metaphysics.
For a while, I played with an idea of identity as an infection of sorts. By adding X piece to the car, over time it takes on the identity of the car, when it's no longer 'new' but just becomes part of the car. However, upon further reflection, I realized the change there is not anything with the car, piece, or any element of the car. What changes is the perceptions of those who use the car. The car is ultimately just a piece of metal - interchangeable, for all purposes, with any other identical car. If I replaced the car with a perfect duplicate, would it BE that car? Our instinct here is to say no. However, I am starting to believe the IDENTITY of the car is a perception of the car, and an element of it's relation to the world around it. It has connection to certain people, occupies a certain space, and interacts in a certain way with the other things around it.
Similarly, those other things are defined by the other objects they interact with. If we see the entire world as a multitude of 'individuals' (by this I mean not just people but inanimate objects, plants, molecules, anything that can be identified as a single thing) connected by spiderweb threads that represent the interactions or effects of each individual (thing) upon the others, then where does the identity really lie? Does that duplicate car replace the original in it's place in our spiderweb? The owner then refers to it as 'my' car, everyone recognizes it as the owner's car... what is it that the car lacks, then, in a practical sense? Is identity a real thing, or is it an artifact of human thought?
I think it's necessary to make a distinction between physical existence and identity. A car can exist, have all the pieces replaced over 20 years, and yet the person would still say it is their car. It retains identity. So simply to say something exists does not give it identity - identity is what distinguishes a single something from another something. So what is it?
If we cannot point to it physically, and say this, this is the place from which identity springs, then we HAVE to believe it is either a non-physical element of an object (does a chair have a spirit?), or else it is actually the result of what comes to my mind as the void space created by those spiderweb threads we talked about earlier intersecting a certain something which can be interacted with in the spiderweb of the world. If that is so, then would it not be possible to have an object which has no physical existence but still has identity? Such as a chair that EVERYONE sees, but does not actually exist? Similarly, is it not possible to switch out that car with an exact duplicate and have it truly BE that original car?
I realize somewhere along here, I lost coherence and went into just straight train-of-thought, so it's probably pretty nonsensical. I really just wanted to get it out myself.
First, I was talking with a friend and I think I had a bit of an epiphany. I've always thought very hard about what it is that makes me feel like I can change myself, where so many other people feel so incapable of changing themselves, or feel like they are bad people. I sort of accidentally stumbled upon an idea that I think is pretty close to core on my viewpoint about myself, and about other people too.
When people get really down on themselves, they think they are failures, etc. I think people get too wrapped up in this unforgiving idea our society holds about personal identity. We tend to define ourselves by our worst characteristics, possibly in hopes that it will encourage us to change them, but ultimately I think it makes us feel powerless.
My viewpoint on personal identity is this: We (you, he, she, everyone individually) are exactly who we THINK we are. The difference between how we behave and how the person we think we are would behave can be attributed to bad habits. I don't necessarily mean here that one can change who they are from one second to the next, but their CORE self-image. If you simply believe you are a good person, the only thing between you and the external world are bad learned behaviors, that can be unlearned to let who you really are shine through.
Second, I've been thinking a lot lately about relations. I don't mean relations as in the euphemism for doin' the dirty, nor do I mean relations as a shortened version of relationships (though that's been on my mind a lot lately too). What I mean is identity and relationships between different things. This ties to self identity in some ways - what makes us who we actually are. What makes me me, when all the cells in my body will change out over the course of my lifetime and ultimately I will not be made of anything I once was. Similarly, if there is a car which, over the course of 20 years, EVERY part of it is replaced - is it still the same car? I'm sure you've heard these kind of arguments before. If you haven't, you need to take a philosophy course. You can't dodge this shit if you WANT to. It'll come up in an intro class. Great metaphysics.
For a while, I played with an idea of identity as an infection of sorts. By adding X piece to the car, over time it takes on the identity of the car, when it's no longer 'new' but just becomes part of the car. However, upon further reflection, I realized the change there is not anything with the car, piece, or any element of the car. What changes is the perceptions of those who use the car. The car is ultimately just a piece of metal - interchangeable, for all purposes, with any other identical car. If I replaced the car with a perfect duplicate, would it BE that car? Our instinct here is to say no. However, I am starting to believe the IDENTITY of the car is a perception of the car, and an element of it's relation to the world around it. It has connection to certain people, occupies a certain space, and interacts in a certain way with the other things around it.
Similarly, those other things are defined by the other objects they interact with. If we see the entire world as a multitude of 'individuals' (by this I mean not just people but inanimate objects, plants, molecules, anything that can be identified as a single thing) connected by spiderweb threads that represent the interactions or effects of each individual (thing) upon the others, then where does the identity really lie? Does that duplicate car replace the original in it's place in our spiderweb? The owner then refers to it as 'my' car, everyone recognizes it as the owner's car... what is it that the car lacks, then, in a practical sense? Is identity a real thing, or is it an artifact of human thought?
I think it's necessary to make a distinction between physical existence and identity. A car can exist, have all the pieces replaced over 20 years, and yet the person would still say it is their car. It retains identity. So simply to say something exists does not give it identity - identity is what distinguishes a single something from another something. So what is it?
If we cannot point to it physically, and say this, this is the place from which identity springs, then we HAVE to believe it is either a non-physical element of an object (does a chair have a spirit?), or else it is actually the result of what comes to my mind as the void space created by those spiderweb threads we talked about earlier intersecting a certain something which can be interacted with in the spiderweb of the world. If that is so, then would it not be possible to have an object which has no physical existence but still has identity? Such as a chair that EVERYONE sees, but does not actually exist? Similarly, is it not possible to switch out that car with an exact duplicate and have it truly BE that original car?
I realize somewhere along here, I lost coherence and went into just straight train-of-thought, so it's probably pretty nonsensical. I really just wanted to get it out myself.